The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for original evidence, admissibility of secondary evidence, and the certification of electronic evidence under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act.

JUDGMENT

Yogesh Khanna, J.

1. The present petition for quashing under Section 482 Cr.P.C. is preferred against an Order dated 02.03.2020, passed by the learned Spl. Judge (PC) Act, CBI-12,RADCC, New Delhi arising out of RC No.11(A)/2017/SCUV/SC-II/CBI/New Delhi, whereby the Ld. Special Judge rejected the closure report No.11/2019 in present case, wherein admittedly, the original device through which the alleged sting operation was conducted was destroyed and could not be procured during the investigation. It is alleged the Hard disk containing the video footage, allegedly transferred from the original device, was also opined to be a `bad media' and thus not admissible as evidence in terms of law laid down in Anvar P.V vs P. K Basheer and Others (2014) 10 SCC 473 and Sanjaysinh Ramrao Chavan vs. Dattatray Gulabrao Phalke and Other (2015) 3 SCC 123. It is argued the summoning order is liable to be quashed.

2. The facts are as under:

a. on 17th and 18th July 2016, a private news Channel called Samachar Plus aired on national broadcast an alleged sting operation. The operation was allegedly carried out and recorded by a journalist Pt.Auysh Gaur (Deputy Director, Samachar Plus) allegedly through a customized i-phone spy camera between March 2016 to May 2016 allegedly exposing the manner in which rules were being flouted in Dr.Karni Singh Shooting Range("KSSR"), in return of cash and gifts, to facilitate shooting practice by potential shooters. One such recording dated 15.05.2016 allegedly contain footage of the Petitioner accepting an alleged amount of Rs.1.00 Lakh in cash and a bottle of liquor from the reporter who posed as a young shooter wanting to utilize the shooting range facilities. It is apposite to mention it is an admitted case of the prosecution that Pt.Ayush Gaur in his statement under Section 161 Cr.P.C. has admitted the petitioner had never demanded any amount for any purpose either before 15.05.2016 or at any point in time. It is further the case of prosecution itself the recording was edited by the producer for the purposes of the telecast. On the basis of the aforesaid telecast, an internal inquiry was conducted by the Sports Authority of India (hereinafter as `SAI') and the SAI sought video footage from the news channel on 18.07.2016. The news channel allegedly loaded the video footage from the hard-disk in two CD's containing, one raw audio visual footage and second server copy of the telecast footage of the programme "Operation Arjun" and handed over the CD's through a token on 11.08.2016. Thereafter, SAI forwarded the two CDs to CFSL, Chandigarh on 20.07.2016. Without waiting for the CFSL result and after the delay of approximately seven months from the date of the telecast of the so called sting, on 02.03.2017, a complaint was filed by the Chief Vigilance Officer, SAI to the Central Bureau of Investigation against the Petitioner, alleging a Hindi news channel called "Samachar Plus" conducted a sting operation titled "Operation Arjun", wherein it was shown the petitioner was accepting a cash bribe of an alleged sum of Rs.1,00,000/- from the media reporter of the news channel, who posed as an individual interested in using the training facility to become a renowned shooter. Accordingly, on 09.08.2017, an FIR bearing No.RC/11(A)/2017/SCUV/SCII/CBI/New Delhi was lodged against the petitioner under Sections 7,13 (2) r/w S.13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act;

b. consequently, on 05.09.2016, CFSL Chandigarh submitted its report in which it was admitted the parcels containing two DVD received by them in an unsealed condition making them open to tampering and inadmissible. The CFSL Chandigarh further opined video recording of one video (C- l) is in continuity. Further, they opined the video recording of the video file "1707 Stingserver.Mpg" present in Ex.C2 is not original recording and it is an edited version. Thus allegedly these CDs, which contain the audio/video of the alleged sting are not the primary evi